


Waylay - Wings

by cutsycat



Series: Dictionary.Com Word of the Day Drabbles [1383]
Category: NCIS
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-09
Updated: 2019-10-09
Packaged: 2020-11-28 09:08:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20964023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cutsycat/pseuds/cutsycat
Summary: When Tony was young, he lost his mother or so everyone thought. Tony knew differently. He'd seen her fly away on her wings. She said someday he'd have wings of his own, but he'd never found them. Then he met Gibbs and discovered Shannon and Kelly and their wings. How do the mercenaries who were the reason his mother left factor into all of this?





	Waylay - Wings

**Author's Note:**

> Another dictionary.com word of the day drabble. This time from 02/12/2003 for the word [waylay](http://www.dictionary.com/wordoftheday/2003/02/12/waylay).
> 
> waylay[ wey-ley, wey-ley ]  
verb (used with object), way·laid, way·lay·ing.  
to intercept or attack from ambush, as in order to rob, seize, or slay.  
to await and accost unexpectedly:  
The actor was waylaid by a swarm of admirers.
> 
> This is for Prompt #2 of the June 2019 Five Prompts Challenge located [here](https://ncis-discuss.livejournal.com/199847.html).

What no one knew except Senior was that Tony’s mother died because of one Anthony DiNozzo, Sr. Senior couldn’t handle it, so he blamed his son, Tony, and he did his best to cover up her murder. Tony didn’t understand why they weren’t allowed to talk about the “car accident” until he was much older.

As a kid, Tony really didn’t understand it at all. He’d been in the car with his mom when they were waylaid by mercenaries. To this day, Tony doesn’t know who his dad pissed off enough to put out a hit on his wife to show they were serious about their threats. He watched the first bullet hit his mother in the chest and that was when he discovered wings.

In fact, mostly what he remembered were the wings. She’d looked so beautiful as she’d risen up into the sky with her wings. She’d whispered, "One day you too will have wings."

Tony had been so excited and babbled about it to everyone he could until his dad had sent him off to boarding school and ordered the school to punish him every time he mentioned wings. He hadn’t seen his mother since that day. Some people tried to tell him that she was dead, but he knew better. 

He’d seen her wings. She was alive somewhere, but the only times he saw her were in dreams. She never came back home after that accident.

The mercenaries had pushed the car into the railing and left Tony there alone. His mom had flown off. Her body wasn’t even in the car with him and he was shivering in the night air.

His teeth chattered so hard by the time someone found him that he couldn’t help wondering now if he’d actually gotten hypothermia. He never knew what his father did to eliminate the evidence of the wreck and what really happened that night, but it was another thing he wasn’t allowed to talk about.

Boarding school successfully managed to teach him to stop talking about these things, but they couldn’t get him to stop believing his mother was alive somewhere nor to stop believing in wings. They tried to punish him for his drawings of wings, but he was much better at hiding those then they were at finding them. Whenever he needed to feel closer to his mother, he would draw her with the wings he saw that day. 

By the time he’d gotten to college, it had become so ingrained that you didn’t talk about those two things that he decided to just make up stories so that no one would ask. Incidentally, this also caused his dad and others to think he’d finally accepted the truth, but he hadn’t. He knew someday his mother would return for him and would show him how to find his wings and use them.

Still as far as his frat brothers knew his mother died of cancer when he was 8. Everyone would offer their sympathies and then they would move onto another subject. It worked for Tony and no one punished him anymore, not even his father. 

Admittedly, he was still pissed at his dad for a number of other reasons, including abandoning him in a hotel in Florida, so they didn’t talk either, but his dad no longer threatened to cut him out of the will or anything else that he could think of to punish his son. He didn’t forget about the wings, but they were so much not a part of his life that he stopped wondering exactly when he’d get his wings or see his mother again. 

About 25 years after his mother used her wings and vanished, Tony ran smack dab into NCIS Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs. He didn’t know it at the time, but once he got him back to the police station the man explained everything. Well not everything, but enough to have them contacting NCIS for verification.

Gibbs entrance into his life threw his whole plan out the window. He’d expected to stay at Baltimore for many more years after marrying Wendy. Only the whole reason NCIS was snooping around was because there was a money laundering case going on and his partner was smack dab in the middle of it. 

Wendy didn’t understand why he wanted to leave Baltimore and accept Gibbs’ offer of a job. She wasn’t supportive of it either. Tony tried to make the long distance thing work for a bit before giving up when he realized Wendy really didn’t care about him. 

It was a bit of a shock the first time he went over to Gibbs’ house, he didn’t even remember why he’d come over, and discovered that Shannon and Kelly had wings too. He wasn’t sure if Gibbs could see them, but Tony clearly could. He knew that they were dead and it made him wonder if he was wrong about his mother. Maybe she actually was dead.

It felt wrong to him for her to be dead, but Shannon and Kelly were the only ones he’d ever seen with wings beside her and they were definitely dead. Well Kelly said they were technically angels which meant they were just visiting Earth and no longer alive or dead.

Her explanation didn’t really make sense to Tony. He tried to ask about his mother one time, but Shannon just shook her head and then Gibbs was there demanding who he was talking to. Not wanting to go through a repeat of boarding school punishment, Tony smiled, “Just myself, Gibbs.”

In fact, it wasn’t until one of the NCIS cases crossed with the same mercenaries that had caused his mom to vanish that he began to really understand what had happened when he was 8. They’d kept records of every job they’d taken, whether it was successful, and whether the client was happy with the outcome. When they’d taken those records into custody, Tony was surprised to see his mother and Shannon and Kelly both listed in those records.

It had been long enough and he’d been young enough that he hadn’t remembered what the mercenaries looked like and hadn’t put together that it was the same ones until he saw those records. Gibbs saw them too and had immediately turned and given Tony a searching look that Tony hadn’t understood. As they were getting ready to leave work, Gibbs had ordered him to dinner as he was known to do.

Tony figured something was up because of the look earlier in the day, but he didn’t expect to arrive at Gibbs’ house and see him tending the fire with wings coming out of his shoulders. “Gibbs?”

“Hey, Tony. Where are yours?”

“I don’t understand. Where are my what?”

“Your wings.”

“I don’t have wings.”

“Sure, you do. Your mother wouldn’t have been part of the mercenaries’ jobs if you didn’t.”

“Huh?”

“You can see and talk to Shannon and Kelly too, can’t you?” Gibbs pointed out as he handed out the steaks. “I hadn’t been sure when I heard you that time, but after the mercenaries’ list, I knew you had to have been speaking to them.”

“What are you talking about, Gibbs?”

“They had wings before they became angels, you know.”

“What?” Tony’s confusion was real as he started to eat his steak.

“Well technically they had wings because they were angels all along, but the reason most people can’t see them now is because they passed over to join Heaven’s angels.”

“You aren’t making any sense, Gibbs.”

“There are children who are born angels on Earth. At least one of their parents must be an angel or angel descendant for this to happen. In Kelly’s case both of her parents were angel descendants.”

“So you’re saying my mother was an angel descendant?”

Gibbs shrugged. “She might have been full angel. I couldn’t say. The mercenaries targeted our petty officer because of his wings and that’s why they targeted everyone else on their list too.”

“Why?”

“Because angels are different and people are scared of anything or anyone different, especially if they don’t have an explanation for the difference.”

“So once we take these mercenaries down for the petty officers, my mom can return?”

Gibbs shook his head, finishing off his own steak. “No, whatever reason she had for leaving she won’t return until it’s finished. Also, these mercenaries aren’t the only ones who hunt angels.”

Tony sighed. He’d had a brief hint of hope that he’d see his mother again soon, but apparently not. Changing the subject, Tony murmured, “Why are you so sure I have wings?”

“Call it a hunch.”

“So if I did have wings, how would I go about finding them?”

Gibbs shrugged. “It’s different for everyone the first time. Once you find them, then you can just focus on them to make them appear or disappear, but finding them is always the tricky part. Usually, great trauma is what makes them appear or a desperate desire to save someone that you wouldn’t normally be able to save.”

Tony shook his head. “Pretty sure both of those have already happened to me.”

“They are a part of you. You just have to find them. Maybe some soul searching would tell you what you need to do?”

Tony frowned. “I’ll think about it. What do we do about the mercenaries and the other groups hunting angels, though?”

“We treat it like any other case. We just have to be more careful.”

Tony nodded, leaving the house more thoughtful than when he’d entered. At work the next day, neither of them mentioned their talk, though Tony did look into more detail at what the mercenaries listed about his mother. He discovered that the person who had ordered the hit was a mob boss. 

He didn’t bother calling Senior, he knew Senior wouldn’t answer. Still he used his contacts to dig into what happened back then. It was actually his mother’s brother, Clive, that gave him the missing piece he’d needed. 

When Senior first met Lucia Paddington, she’d been dating this mob boss. Apparently, she fell in love with Senior and ditched the mob boss, who didn’t take it kindly. They’d managed to stay off his radar by moving to America, but he’d finally found them again and if he couldn’t have her neither could anyone else.

Tony didn’t know what to think about this. He still didn’t understand why Senior went to such lengths to cover up what happened. Tony was positive there was more to this story than what he’d found out, but at least it explained why his mother had been targeted.

Despite the very thorough records the mercenaries had, actually proving they were the ones who killed the petty officer was proving to be difficult. None the least because Tony had seen the petty officer and knew he wasn’t actually dead, just like Tony’s mother. Though, actually it wasn’t proving that the group killed the petty officer that it was difficult. It was proving that someone was a member of the group and participated in the killing that was driving everyone up a wall.

Gibbs especially was extra growly. Tony knew why. These were the guys who had actually killed his wife and daughter. Pedro Hernandez had been the one to place the hit, but the mercenaries had done the deed.

After many long days, they finally found what they needed to get confessions from the members they had identified. It probably wasn’t all of them, but it was enough to make a dent in the organizations’ abilities for sure. As they wrapped up the case, Tony assumed that things would go back to normal with perhaps more invites to dinner from Gibbs to talk about angel things.

He didn’t expect Gibbs to actually ask him out on a date. He’d been gone on the guy before he knew he had wings, but he was sure Gibbs was straight. Apparently, Gibbs just wasn’t willing to date people who didn’t know about angels as he ended up having to keep enough secrets due to his work that he couldn’t handle having to keep that secret too.

Now that Tony knew, Gibbs felt he was safe to date. Tony was a bit bemused by this logic since he still didn’t have his wings, but he could kind of understand it. What surprised him the most though was when they finally had sex.

Not that they had sex, their relationship had been clearly heading that way for a while and there was no reason not to in Tony’s book. No, the surprise was realizing his wings had appeared afterwards. Gibbs had looked insanely pleased with himself, but Tony had been too happy about finally finding his wings to care. 

Things really settled down after that. Not to say that the job was any less dangerous, but Tony and Gibbs’ relationship only continued to improve and grow more solid as they spent more time together personally. He even saw his mother on and off now. 

Apparently, she’d been living with the Paddingtons to avoid bringing more trouble down on his head, but now that Gibbs and he had started cleaning up the angel hunters and he’d brought forth his wings, her presence wouldn’t bring any additional danger to him. Tony loved having Gibbs in his life, but getting to see his mother again on a regular basis was the icing on the cake. He knew there would still be struggles, but he was pretty damn happy with his life as it was now.

**Author's Note:**

> The dictionary.com series has 1 story already written for it after this one, so I will be posting at least 1 more story before I stop posting again. I'm hoping to get more stories written before then, so that I don't stop posting for a while. Wish me luck! 
> 
> It's 2019 now and I have closed my 2018 Prompt collection, but fear not my 2019 Prompt Collection is now open [here](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/cutsycat_NCIS_Prompts_2019/profile). Just click the sign up link. ;) It will remain open until the beginning of 2020. I'm hoping to complete all the 2019 prompts by the end of 2020. Do not fear I have not forgotten about the 2018 prompts and will continue working through them. It's just easier for me to not get overwhelmed if I keep the prompts separated by the year they were given to me.
> 
> If you are not an ao3 member, you can prompt me [here](http://cutsycat.livejournal.com/50701.html). Please follow the same rules as are listed in the above link. However, because this is a handmade prompt form(that thinks it's a poll), it is considerably more limited than what ao3 provides, so please use the ao3 form if you're an ao3 member. Please note the name option is for a name that I can say this is for so that you know it's for you. Since this is for non ao3 members it won't be true gifts, but you will be mentioned in the notes. Please note if you have already voted in the poll and would like to request more stories you can just add a comment to the poll. Please include the name along with the prompt, so that I can appropriately gift the prompt to you.
> 
> For any authors that want to chat and/or are looking for a place where they can toss plot ideas around and get input from people, you can come join my discord server that is specifically geared towards writing/encouraging people to write and authors. The invite link is [here](https://discord.gg/HFvwpCq). If you're not an author, but want to chat with me about writing/stories or anything else you are welcome to join. I reserve the right to boot you from my server if all you do is pester me about updates, however. *grin* Really anyone who wants to talk about writing and/or plot ideas for various stories is welcome to join. 
> 
> Also, Drakonyashka has translated a couple of my works into Russian. [Tutelage](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12378780) and [Imbue](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12378840). Go support them. 


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